FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT PALEONTOLOGISTS - PAGE 2

As Jorge Calvo strode along the dusty banks of this Patagonian lake, he scanned the reddish dirt, pointing to the remains of a dinosaur in the desert sun. Continuing on, he scampered into an 8-foot pit and waved to Marcela Milani, a technician working with a thick nail and a hammer. She was chipping away at a rock looking for a missing hipbone believed to be part of Calvo's most famous discovery, Futalognkosaurus, a new genus of plant-eating dinosaur more than 100 feet long from tail to nose.

Baby dinosaurs probably grew like weeds, zooming to adult size at a pace something like that of birds - whose young are fully fledged and independent within a season - and not so much like that of reptiles, whose slow-growing offspring can take many years to reach full size. That is one of the conclusions scientists have drawn from their analysis of a previously unknown feature of dinosaur bones. The analysis also bolsters the growing belief that birds evolved from dinosaurs and remain, even today, closer relatives than modern reptiles.

Once home to fossils and artifacts, the old Graves Museum of Archaeology & Natural History building might soon house a charter elementary school. Florida Intercultural Academy, based in Hollywood, hopes to buy the 50,000-square-foot building at 481 S. Federal Highway, and turn it into a campus with 500 students. "I feel positive about it. It's a great use," said Cynthia Dotson, a consultant for Florida Intercultural, who plans to discuss the proposal with city commissioners today .

Once home to fossils and artifacts, the old Graves Museum of Archaeology & Natural History building might soon house a charter elementary school. Florida Intercultural Academy, based in Hollywood, hopes to buy the 50,000-square-foot building at 481 S. Federal Highway and turn it into a campus with 500 students. "I feel positive about it. It's a great use," said Cynthia Dotson, a consultant for Florida Intercultural. Dotson plans to discuss the proposal with city commissioners today . "The community the school will draw from will benefit tremendously," she said.

In the past, when paleontologist and conservationist Richard Leakey talked about saving the planet, he focused on ending the slaughter of wildlife, the depletion of resources, the fouling of the environment. Today he takes a broader view, saying that salvation of the planet, and ultimately ourselves, lies in ending poverty. Leakey, the famous son of that late legendary couple, anthropologist Louis Leakey and archaeologist Mary Leakey, is in South Florida this week for Feast with the Beasts '98 Week, a fund-raiser for the Zoological Society of Florida, which supports Metrozoo.

Fossil hunters in Madagascar recently discovered a new dinosaur. They named it Masiakasaurus knopfleri after musician Mark Knopfler, because the scientists listened to a lot of music that Knopfler made with his band, Dire Straits. We thought naming dinos after rock stars was pretty darn hip for paleontologists. But it was obvious they needed some help getting up to speed on 21st-century sounds. So we created a few other species for scientists to think about. Rumor-spearing dilosaur Britney Spears has something in common with one of those lizards of old. The dilophosaurus was a totally misunderstood dino.

The only dinosaurs ever to inhabit Florida are those found on movie screens. In the wake of Jurassic Park, dino-lovers have been calling South Florida archaeologists and scientists, wanting to know where they can get a local glimpse of dinosaur remains. They are out of luck. No bones about it. Florida is one of the few dino-less states in the union because it was under water during the time dinosaurs ruled the earth. "They weren`t here and they never will be here," says Gary Morgan, a paleontologist with the Florida Natural History Museum in Gainesville.

Paleontologists have unearthed two fossils that provide some of the strongest evidence yet that today's birds descended from dinosaurs. One, a long-tailed bird about the size of a small hawk, has a slashing claw that resembles those found on dinosaurs such as velociraptor. The other creature, flightless and turkey-like, could be mistaken for a dinosaur, but was able to move its snout up and down like a bird. Taken together, the two papers "are a good kick supporting the idea that birds are descendants of dinosaurs," said paleontologist Luis Chiappe of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Twenty-three pieces of fossilized dinosaur dung, scooped from around Hanksville, recently sold for $4,500 at Bonhams, a London auction house. Owner Jan Stobbe, a Dutch geologist, said the dung sold to an unidentified British buyer for 10 times as much as he thought it was worth. Among other items sold at the auction was Stobbe's collection of fossilized dinosaur eggs, including a rare nest of 10 sauropod eggs that went for $33,900. Paleontologists estimate the eggs were laid between 70 million and 100 million years ago in the late Jurassic to early Cretaceous period by one of the giant herbivores.

If the smaller-brained dinosaurs were smart enough to load up on greens, "intelligent" humans ought to follow with a more rational, balanced diet. Utah paleontologists have found evidence of a dinosaur species, Falcarius, which was evolving from a carnivorous warrior to pacifist vegetarian. It's not clear why the species took a liking to green plants, but paleontologists speculate global warming and a proliferation of edible foliage might have had something to do with it. Or maybe this group of dinos realized they had gotten way too fat from dining on prey high in saturated fat, sort of a prehistoric version of fast food?